Milbank Advises on Deals to Develop Two Children's Amusement Parks in Malaysia
Deals closed for first “The Little Big Club” amusement park in Asia and first Hello Kitty amusement park in Southeast Asia
TOKYO, November 23, 2009 – Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP has represented Themed Attractions and Resorts Sdn Bhd (TARSB), a subsidiary of Malaysian Government-owned Khazanah Nasional Berhad, in two transactions for children’s amusement facilities to be built in Malaysia. Licence agreements were signed with HIT Entertainment Limited, which owns the rights to Thomas the Tank Engine, Barney, Bob the Builder, Pingu and Angelina Ballerina, and with Japan’s Sanrio Co. Ltd., owner of the Hello Kitty brand. The deal team was partner Darrel Holstein with associate Tim Mackey from Milbank’s Tokyo office.
The HIT attraction, to be known as The Little Big Club, will be the first of its kind in Asia, and the Hello Kitty-branded attraction will be the first Sanrio amusement park in Southeast Asia.
The HIT and Sanrio transactions follow on from the Legoland Malaysia transaction signed in December 2008 for Khazanah subsidiary Iskandar Investment Bhd., and the KidZania Malaysia transaction earlier this year for TARSB. All of the facilities are due to open in Malaysia in 2012 or 2013.
Both the HIT and Sanrio facility will include interactive games and activities and willbe housed in the same building. The amusement parks will be at Puteri Harbor in Iskandar, 20 minutes from the “Second Crossing” that links the southwest of Malaysia with Singapore.
These deals add two more world-renowned labels to Milbank Tokyo’s amusement/theme-park licensing experience, with Darrel Holstein having represented the Hong Kong Government in the Hong Kong Disneyland transaction, USJ Co. Ltd, in the development of Universal Studios Japan, Iskandar Investment Berhad in relation to the Legoland Malaysia development and TARSB on the license for developing KidZania in Malaysia.
Kadir Andri & Partners acted as local Malaysian counsel for TARSB on both the HITand Sanrio transactions.
About Milbank
Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP is a leading global law firm that for more than 140 years has provided innovative legal solutions in many of the world’s largest, most complex and innovative transactions. Our transactional expertise includes Acquisition Finance, Capital Markets, Corporate Finance, Project Finance and other major fields of law practice. Headquartered in New York, Milbank has 10 offices worldwide, including Beijing, Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo.